It is such a puny thing as me
cast adrift on an unfamiliar sea
and she laps at my sides as if
she knows of my rendered end.
If I could be but preserved by her
blinded brine, judged by the balance
of scales held loose in the evaporation
of any single mirage; oh to be.
Here it is that I am marooned on
an inner tube, my only possession
a scrap, lead and a small bottle of cobalt blue.
I am too late to be found in any condition
and the undertow of my currency is positionless.
It is certain down to the bleaching
of my very marrow.

And then there is time.
Some matter it is.
And I gnaw on it as some cannibal
without conscience or remorse or judgment.
I rise and fall no less on these waves as Rome,
as Caesar who turned mortal wound.
I am cast away from the world of men,
of angels,
of gods.
[How] I went to sea so foolishly.